Al McBride 0:02
Welcome to the dealing with Goliath podcast. The mission of dealing with Goliath is to sharpen the psychological edge in negotiation, ethical influencing and high impact conversations for business leaders who want to be more effective under pressure, uncover hidden value and build greater connection all while increasing profitability. With expert guests across the business spectrum, we deliver gems of wisdom, delving into their methods, their thinking and approach to business life and problem solving. This is the short form espresso shot of insight podcast interview to boost business performance, using our five questions in around about 15 minutes format.

My guest today is Jason Skeesick. Jason is a US Army veteran coach, entrepreneur and community builder. He’s a father, husband, fighter and carrier of heavy things. I love that line, he’s built several businesses, each with strong teams and tribal communities. His company, spear and clover helps entrepreneurs who have gotten as far as they can by themselves. They put in the hard work, overcome obstacles and learn to wear all the hats, yet still somehow can’t seem to take it to the next level. He helps them to create the foundations and frameworks in their businesses that will allow them to become a dynasty organization. That’s a great phrase, I’m gonna go deeper on that in a minute. capable of producing industry leading results year after year, without reliance on certain managers, role players or tactics. He leads the Spear and Clover mastermind, a large group of like minded entrepreneurs united in helping each other and challenging each other to grow in order to make an impact on the world. You can find Jason hosting the weekly spearing Clover podcast available on YouTube and all across all audio platforms. Excellent stuff, Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason Skeesick 1:45
Oh, Al. I am excited to be here. Thank you so much for that lovely introduction. I cannot wait to have this conversation.

Al McBride 1:53
This is awesome stuff. So thank you so much for coming on the show. And what a great intro there. So many things to dive into. But let’s just first First of all, for our listeners, just focusing a little bit. So just tell us who’s your ideal client? And what’s the biggest challenge they usually face?

Jason Skeesick 2:08
Yes, so I help wizards become scientists. And what that means is, there’s so many people that become really great at their profession. They’re unbelievable coaches, They’re unbelievable writers. They’re unbelievable. Salespeople are marketers. But it’s their wizards. It’s magic, they can do the magic, it’s stuck between their ears. And they get to a certain point, depending on the type of business where they just can’t grow beyond the between their ears.

And so what I do is I help them to understand that, in fact, their magic has science behind it. And if we take the time to outline that into put that down on paper and, and create systems and processes around it, we can in fact scale our impact on the world in a far greater way than we can trying to be everything to everybody.

Al McBride 2:52
I absolutely love that. What a fantastic metaphor. I love it so much. So you’re helping people sort of harness that magic, as you said, but but put it in a bit of a structure. So it can be delivered more effectively. Is that right? Yeah,

Jason Skeesick 3:07
that’s exactly right. I mean, so you mentioned that we use the term dynasty. So my program that I offer Private program is called dynasty defined. And what that’s based on is the idea of sports dynasties, right, of dynasties, like the All Blacks in New Zealand, or of the New York Yankees, or, you know, the New England Patriots, these are organizations that win no matter who’s on the field, by and large. And it’s because they’re gathered around these foundational principles.

They have clear and real and scalable frameworks that allow them to reproduce their success over and over again. And then they know how to manage the team on the field and stay in flow, right. And so this is essentially the process that I take people through. But more importantly, it’s the way that I look at business, right? And so you can be an unbelievable player or an unbelievable coach or have an unbelievable play. But unless you have the ability to create a framework around that, that allows you to scale it in some way isn’t a business. It’s a profession.

Al McBride 4:00
Gotcha, gotcha. I love the way you’re mixing the systems, which you obviously have those protocols. People know the structure. But it sounds like you’re writing and creating an awful lot of culture there as well. Because if you think of the the all blacks or the Yankees or whoever these highly successful dynasties, as you said, it is the systems but you can copy and paste some of those systems where they wouldn’t be the same. It’s the culture. So do you help people develop that, that that sense of what we’re about? And when people join? I suppose the polarizes people as well, like in a good way, like, Oh, you’re not for me. You’re definitely on this team. Yeah. Yeah. I

Jason Skeesick 4:35
mean, that’s the foundation, right? And so I think a lot of times, people in our type of world you and I do similar but different things. But I think a lot of times people are selling turning up the volume on your business, and that’s great. So it’s advertising, it’s marketing. It’s how to go out and hire new people how to make more deals, how to take more transactions, or lay more bricks, whatever.

The problem is what you just alluded to culture that comes from having clarity So until you fine tune clarity on exactly what it is that you do, who you are, who you serve best, and the exact like, undeniable offer that your your business creates, you really shouldn’t be worried about turning up the volume. And so I love, love, love that you pulled out that cultural piece, because that’s part of clarity. That’s part of creating clarity. There’s just no uncertainty. When you asked me who I serve, I serve magicians. If I had told you 100 things, then nobody would know. Everybody be like, maybe it’s me. But it’s probably not.

Al McBride 5:28
Right. No, I got it. And as you were saying that it was also you know, the typical thing of the E Myth idea of the technician, entrepreneur, you know, they’re great at the actual thing that they’re doing. Maybe not so great at business or selling themselves or all the other parts. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So what are some of the common mistakes people make when they’re trying to solve that?

Because you’re saying, and I get that because we all we all know, other entrepreneurs, and they get, we have all been stuck at one time or another. And as you said, they’re doing all the right things in a lot of ways, but they’re not reaching that next level. What are some of those other symptoms that they might recognize themselves?

Jason Skeesick 6:03
Yeah, I think that ultimately, it really boils down to one common problem, especially for I think, who you serve, which is sort of the smaller business entrepreneur who’s really trying to take what they do well, and see it just make an impact, whether that’s financial or helping the world. And that is they have one thing that’s holding them down. And so I don’t know if you’re listening to audio, and you can’t see this, but I’ve put a finger in the middle of my left hand, and it’s holding my left hand down. And so there’s this one thing that maybe they don’t know how to do.

Or maybe they don’t know why, you know, they don’t want to do it. Or maybe they need to hire someone or learn something to do it. And so instead of addressing the one thing, holding them down, so many of us just do what but any organism does we frickin squirm, right. And so I’m moving my fingers. Now we still we squirm. So we do anything, but the one thing that’s actually going to help us move forward. And so ultimately, I think if there was one guiding principle, to answer your question, it would be to, to really tune in to the one thing that’s holding your business down, and Stop squirming and just address the one thing.

Al McBride 7:10
And I love that because you’re pretty much answering the next question, which is, what’s one valuable free action that the audience can? So how do people because as you said, they’re squirming? And they don’t? I would imagine, they don’t often know with great clarity exactly what’s holding them down. Is there? Is there a way that you help clients work that out? Or is it pretty obvious?

Jason Skeesick 7:29
It’s not here’s the thing, honestly, I’ll there’s so many attributes to a business that I don’t like to take for granted than anything is obvious. Because there just is a especially if, you know, depending on how you come to view, your business is going to definitely change the way that you look at solving the problems within it. So I really try to work from first principles onward with everybody, which means I don’t know exactly where you’re standing and how you’re viewing it. But I’m gonna try and meet you there.

That way I can get a better lay of the land, right? But to answer your question, yes. So we divide our businesses up into five core functions. And then in some period, early on, it should be constantly like every single week, sometimes it gets to monthly and then eventually quarterly, you should be grading your five core functions of your business. And whichever one receives the worst grade is where you shift your attention.

And then there’s a series of key indicators that we help people to understand to where now you can you can drill down, you know, progressively to where there’s just no uncertainty. What is the one thing in the way, by the way, if you’re if you’re listening carefully, and you’ve ever practiced martial arts, like jujitsu, or, or even played chess, you have to address the one biggest threat. This is this is a very, very close tie to the way that you would solve problems in the real world as well. Does that make sense?

Al McBride 8:45
It does. It absolutely. Does. You have to see what’s important now or what’s important next, and then the next thing? And then the next thing? But one of the time so to speak? Yeah.

Jason Skeesick 8:55
Yeah, there’s always one speed limit ultimately. And then maybe one mile per hour faster is another another speed limit. But I’m just saying that in any given time, there’s one thing that is that is either the threat to you or the the block of your advance.

Al McBride 9:08
Absolutely, absolutely. So what might be one valuable free resource that you could direct people to that will help with that?

Jason Skeesick 9:17
Yeah. So obviously, I think right now, this is pretty buzzy, is Chat GPT. And so I actually I actually have a so so let me explain this. I actually have a free and very valuable I think it’s I think I could absolutely charge for it. But I haven’t a free chat GPT course called All Star AI that I give away to all of my prospects, right? It’s, it’s the entry point to come into our free Facebook group where I have daily live free trainings. This isn’t the plug, I’m just just saying

Al McBride 9:44
very valuable free stuff.

Jason Skeesick 9:46
And the reason is, is because at the level of entrepreneur, both you and I serve, the number one problem that they have is tactically they have so much pressure and noise in the day to day of their business, that they’re unable to like think about growing the business long term strategy. logically. And so because of that, yeah, if you’re spending your days writing emails or drafting proposals or you know, creating Facebook, Facebook ad copy, or whatever it may be, you know, the, the 80% of creativity, that is busywork chat GPT can just wipe out and I teach you some very fundamental, simple ways to overcome that. That way you reduce pressure and noise, and can now start to focus on actually building the asset and the future of your business.

Al McBride 10:26
That sounds fantastic, because either people or oh, I don’t know, I don’t really know, I’ve heard they’ve everybody’s heard about it. But are they using it? A lot of people are a bit reluctant. But even the people who are I got it, I mean, I pay the subscription. But as you said, you have to really know what to ask it to get properly valuable stuff out of it, I find a lot of the feedback was low, the outputs were very mediocre, and very moderate use at best. But I’m also aware that that was due to last now I asked it

Jason Skeesick 10:58
well, and even even there, what I would say is, it’s and this is this is everybody right now listening to this is probably doing so on either an iPhone or a Samsung or something like that a phone, right. And this phone, this technology was built to make you better, but does it maybe it’s up to you whether it makes you better or whether it makes you worse. And so what I would say is Chechi, PT is no different, it’s maybe more impressive. But it will either it can either enhance making you better, or it can enhance mediocrity. In other words, not to call

Al McBride 11:30
you indirectly. But the point was, the promise was mediocre.

Jason Skeesick 11:33
And so where we go from there is you have two ways if you don’t want to take the time to become a prompt engineer and learn how to engage with it, which is something that I’ve spent a little bit of time doing. If you don’t want to do that, then what you do is you use it as a starting point. And it creates the scaffolding for which you can add your creativity and your own personal and cultural touch.

And then if you do want to dive in deeper, well, certainly there’s things called GPT tuning that I teach people, which is where you can condition, the GPT to respond in a certain way or in a certain context. And then even beyond that, which I won’t go too far into it, I’ve actually delved into the idea of creating an app where and this exists is very simple, where you you’re engaging with chat TPT, but it’s through a lens that you defined.

And so you’re creating chat GPT but it only answers as Joe Rogan or you’re completing creating chat UBT but it answers according to a structured script, you know, it’ll it’ll send 20 queries and respond 20 different answers based on a predetermined outcome. Again, that’s a little more advanced.

Al McBride 12:34
Amazing, though the possibilities there are already and this is early days, this is how many months is freely available.

Jason Skeesick 12:42
I hope I hope we’re here to listen to this in a year and be able to take advantage of Chachi PT 10.

Al McBride 12:49
Correct. As my software engineer cousin says this now is as dumb as it’s ever going to be again. Yeah. And he’s a software engineer. It’s a language processing thing. And it has jumped his productivity 35 to 40%. Almost overnight.

Jason Skeesick 13:04
Yeah, yeah. And even if so, but, but if you’re listening to this, and you’re on a family business that sells windows, shares, how can help you, you you know, if you don’t feel like sending it creating a, you know, 10 email, new client drip campaign, it can create the scaffolding for that in 30 seconds, you can tune it and create it perfectly in five minutes. Or you can take that scaffolding and just do it yourself in a Microsoft Word document in another 10.

And so what would have taken you two hours and let’s be honest, what you’ve been procrastinating for six months can be done in the morning. And that I think is ultimately the real world. It’s It’s the reason why my grandmother got an iPhone, you know what I mean? It just works. And it allows you to break through that resistant barrier. That thing that holds you back and makes you procrastinate, which is you don’t feel like learning something, you don’t want to do it because you don’t have interest. Or it just seems like it’s going to be a slog. Well it takes away the slog

Al McBride 14:00
that’s standing that’s done, what would be your number one insight or principle on how to negotiate build rapport and connection or uncover hidden value with clients, customers or counterpart?

Jason Skeesick 14:13
I probably have one for all of those. But I think authenticity is what it really comes down to is, I just, you know, I had probably I’ve had two really good compliments this week. One was I was talking to my wife about my podcast and some ideas that I had around it the spearing Clover podcast. And that’s not even it wasn’t my wife. It was I was talking to Alex, I was talking to Alex Sanfilippo, who owns pod matches, which is how we met and he is the guy when it comes to podcasting. I confuse two conversations.

And he said, you know, the one thing I was listening to your podcast today and talking to you now you’re the same person and so there is a thing where the the better and more successful I’ve gotten in my own career and personal journey, the more I’m the same no matter who I’m talking to, and What that’s empowered me to be is present in conversations enough to really, you know, when people say create rapport, it almost makes it so you don’t create rapport. And so the more authentic, you can show up to each engagement, the more easily you will create rapport.

And then the more engaged and rapport you have, the more easily you’ll be able to determine what this person’s perceived value in the conversation might be. And so really quickly, what value really is, is the excess that they can get by working with you, as opposed to them trying to do it themselves or work with someone else. And so if you can distill, just by paying attention and engaging with someone, if you can distill what it is that they actually want, and stop thinking about the thing you want to thrust down their throat, then you will very often find the hidden value that that otherwise you could be pitching something that’s maybe more valuable in your mind than what they actually want. And they don’t care. Because it’s not actually what they want.

Al McBride 15:56
Exactly. Because you’re as you said, you haven’t listened to what the need is there, or being able to just say, if you really listened to be able to read between the lines, but I That’s a beautiful point. It’s a beautiful point about the authenticity, because you’re right, I think a lot of report is being brave enough to drop the defenses and kind of just be a be honestly yourself.

Jason Skeesick 16:18
Yeah, I think I think in in fighting in public speaking in business, in personal relationships, the strongest thing, the highest pinnacle that you can ever do is to show up as who you actually want to be, and who you actually are in the most important moments of your life.

Al McBride 16:35
Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a fabulous point to finish on, Jason. It’s a real boom, drop the mic. I don’t know about that. But it’s starting. So Jason has been an absolute pleasure talking with you.

Jason Skeesick 16:50
Oh, I loved meeting you. I appreciate you sharing with your audience with me. And if you’re still listening to this is because you love Al So make sure you like subscribe and review

Al McBride 16:57
this podcast. Well. Absolutely. Absolutely. Look just as we finish, where can people find out more about you? You mentioned the Facebook group. It’s called dynasty defined.

Jason Skeesick 17:05
dynasty builders is the Facebook group. Yeah. Oh,

Al McBride 17:09
sorry. Okay. dynasty. dynasty builders. I’m glad you corrected me. Where else can people reach out to you so Facebook, you’re very active on? Where else? can people learn more about you?

Jason Skeesick 17:20
Yes. So I host a weekly podcast called The spearing Clover podcast. I have a free Facebook group called dynasty builders and I do have a mastermind called spearing clover. But really, if you want to get a hold of me, I’m very easy to find. I make sure that’s possible. It’s Jason ski sick. No spaces on Instagram. It’s Jason ski sick on Facebook. It’s Jason ski sick on LinkedIn kind of wherever you want to find me and, and if you engage with me, you’re probably talking to me,

Al McBride 17:45
I would study and just for everyone, that’s S-K-E-E-S-I-C-K, just in case you listen to the audio. So lovely to have you on and thank you so much, Jason. Cheers. Thank you.

Jason Skeesick 17:56
I appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai